Avgas Aircraft Engines

The last couple of years development in aircraft engines has been more or less concentrating on diesel engines. We have seen one off installations to fully developed engine production lines. A number of companies are active on this market primarily due to major concern of long term availability and the relative high price of AVgas (Europe). JET fuel (avtur) is available worldwide and can be used in diesel engines. This fuel can also be made of renewable sources (biomass) which contribute to a cleaner environment.

But as there are lots of Avgas engines still being produced and consequently used and installed by kit aircraft builders, we spend some time with Lycoming and Continental type of aircraft engines.

And as perfectly said by Lycoming: Some engines purr like kittens. These roar!

Lycoming Textron IO-390, 580 720 Series

390, 580 and 720 Series Engine Specifications.

Excerpt from the document:

The Lycoming IO-390-X series engines are four-cylinder, direct-drive, horizontally opposed, air-cooled models. Based on the
design of the rebored IO-360 to displace 390 cubic inches, the model produces 210 hp at 2700 rpm and consumes 11.1 gallons per hour at 65 percent power.

The Lycoming IO-580 and the IO-720 series engines are six-cylinder, direct-drive, horizontally opposed, air-cooled models. The cylinders are of conventional air-cooled construction with heads made from an aluminum-alloy casting and a fully machined combustion chamber.

The engines are equipped with a fuel-injection system that schedules fuel flow in proportion to airflow.